Empirical Observations on COTS Software Integration Effort Based on the Initial COCOTS Calibration Database

As the use of commercial-of-the-shelf (COTS) components becomes ever more prevalent in the creation of large software systems, the need for the ability to reasonably predict the true lifetime cost of using such software components grows accordingly. This paper presents empirically-based findings about the effort associated with activities found to be significant in the development of systems using COTS components. The findings are based upon data collected for the purpose of calibrating the COCOTS [1,2] COTS software integration cost model, an extension to the COCOMO II [3] cost model designed to capture costs COCOMO does not. A brief overview of COCOTS is presented to put the data in perspective, including its relation to COCOMO II. A set of histograms is then shown summarizing the effort data collected to date. The paper concludes with some observations suggested by an examination of that calibration data.